Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 26 institutions coordinated; what challenges exist and what is the way forward? This paper makes analyses of all these aspects of the role of the executive and its institutions. Ghana's Role in Integration in West Africa- A Historical Sketch Before Ghana's independence in 1957, there existed among the Anglophone West Africa states, such organisations as the West Africa Currency Board, the West Africa Court of Appeal and the West Africa Cocoa Research Institute.. Incidentally the politics of the post-independence era led to the collapse of these nuclei of integrative schemes. Ironically, while Ghana's first leader Kwame Nkrumah played a leading role in the integration of the whole of Africa, he was opposed to integration in the West African sub-region(Boafo-Arthur 2005: 2). It was not until the 1970s that Ghana dramatically toned down on its anti­integration posture and moved in concert with other states that were anxious for West African integration. Ghana's change of policy direction was partly because of the negative consequences of the break up of the pre-independence schemes and partly because the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Dr Robert Gardiner, a Ghanaian, was eager to see to the establishment of regional economic groupings in West, and other parts of Africa, in the 1970s (Asante 1996: 5). Though Ghana was a founding member of ECOWAS, the Head of State at the time, General I. K. Acheampong, did not play a very active part in the formation process, because his NRC/SMC I(like the subsequent SMC II and AFRC) was too engrossed with domestic politics of survival to pay the necessary and requisite attention to ECOWAS. Similarly, Limann's PNP civilian administration(September 1979 – December 1981) was so tied down by the stagnant economy and the politicised military it inherited that it was politically unwise to be bothered more by the politics of ECOWAS than its internal problems(Boafo-Arthur 2005: 3). Even if the Limann administration was committed to the ideals of ECOWAS, it did not have enough time to demonstrate it, since it was overthrown less than two years after its four-year term in office had commenced. As a result, it was only during the decade of PNDC rule that Ghana's interest in integration schemes was rekindled. The PNDC era however partially coincided with the period of destabilisation in the West African sub-region and the need to be involved in peace negotiations and the sending of peacekeepers to war torn Liberia; a role that would be continued by the successor National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in Sierra Leone and the New Patriotic Party(NPP) in Cote d'Ivoire (Ibid: 2).